A post on Facebook from doraphilia's friend reminded me of some of my favorite early 80's jams. So here you go, Friday videos. One video from Evelyn "Champagne" King with "Love Come Down", which is a song I don't know if I thought was the jam when I was 6 or 7, but I have dug for a while now.

Next is the SOS band with "Take Your Time (Do It Right)," a song that stuck in my memory for a while when I was young - it's repetitive, but at that age you don't really remember the lyrics correctly. And mixed in with all the 80's jingles from commercials and theme songs... I think the lyric and tune part of my brain was polluted. but this jam popped up often on the urban contemporary station (specifically 107.5, W B! LS. That smooth announcer's voice gets your attention).

And from a few years later is the Whispers with "Rock Steady." I don't think I knew it was new when I heard it, even though the song sounds like a late 80's jam, not so different from Bobby Brown's or Janet's bigger-sound hits, or later New Edition. But whenever I have an uptempo gathering - and I can always hold out hope that it will happen again, even though I am probably too old for that s**t like Danny Glover - this will be the "put it in high gear" jam.

Okay, I'm going to the restroom to dance for a minute.

Evelyn "Champagne" King's Love Come Down video



The SOS Band on Soul Train



The Whispers' "Rock Steady." Disregard the fact that they look like some old men trying to look relevant, as they begin to Rock! Steady... steady rockin' all night long.

I posted last week's a little early; go back and check out Babyface's "Whip Appeal" and Snoop's "Doggy Dogg World."

This week: Starship.  I personally have loved "We Built This City" for a long time, one of those earworms that gets lodged in your head from when you're 10 (or whenever that came out... maybe earlier?) and you hum, not knowing the words, filling in gaps with things that you think make sense.  It's a big song, doesn't mean a damned thing.

Last week, we saw happinesstogo for a couple of hours, bleary eyed after the flight back from Spain. She had found the VH1 Classic channel and there were... videos!  "We Built This City" came on, and I was the only person that really enjoyed the song. But something funny happened - I realize that I don't think I have seen the video in a long time.  And boy, does this video just not hold up.

The hair!
The dancing!
The strange overlay of faces that doesn't mean very much!
The serious sorta-multiracial cast of "the city!"
The stares at... the stars?
Why are they SINGING TO ABRAHAM LINCOLN? Does he represent freedom?
Running from falling dice?
(The only thing I like is the aggregate city background.)


Bonus: we also saw Bonham's (as in the Zeppelin drummer's son) "Wait For You." I forgot that I liked that song... I still think it's catchy for hair metal. I'm not sure why they're rocking out in front of a T... and why someone doesn't put out that damned fire, someone's hairspray's gonna go up in flames! (Also, that woman is just not wisely dressed for... anywhere.)

I'll be out of town on Friday but wanted to post a pair of videos for your pre-Memorial Day enjoyment. Both have a "big show", old school feel, and both are... slightly, well, man-centered. The Snoop Dogg video, you could have guessed at. But watch in that Babyface video how all the women around him - and in the distance - seem to melt from the touch of his voice. Kind of creepy. But I love that song.

Babyface, Whip Appeal


Babyface - Whip Appeal (Official Music Video) - More free videos are here

Snoop Dogg, Doggy Dogg World

Last week, personaljinx suggested Hi-5 for this week's video Friday. I'm more in a "Doggy Dogg World" mood, but I can oblige; because I can talk to Hi-5 and how I thought they were a mediocre version of that R&B bubblegum sound that was popular for a lot of the 80s and 90s. I am somewhat happy for the more rap-influenced, baby-mama-drama style of R&B, because this saccharine stuff can get really tired, and is a departure from the dirt of the blues, of soul, of 70's funk. It feels like a studio lie.

Hi-5's "I Like the Way (The Kissing Game)" was probably their most famous song. The video is strange to me - I think those adult women in the video are beyond "the kissing game." Part of this is that the song came out in 1991, and my 15 year old self was not feeling that hormone-suppressed cuteness. Really, I thought it had the quality of the California Dreams theme song (video link).

Around the same time (and also out of Texas, apparently, like Hi-5), Tevin Campbell dropped "Round and Round," a Prince-produced ditty that I still find catchy. I mean, look at that big-ass suit jacket! And those opening notes! Still a little cute, but very pleasant. And when he matured and released Can We Talk? That might be one of my favorite ballads... of course, because it was written by Babyface, one of the few people who can craft a badass ballad. One day, we're gonna have ballad day here with Babyface's "Whip Appeal."

And last, while it's not my absolute favorite song, I must post New Edition's "Cool It Now." Because who brought back those bubblegum sounds in the 80's quite like they did? Ralph Tresvant and Bobby Brown were obviously the pretty boys in the group. Check out Bobby's pants, they're blue, I think. And Bell Biv Devoe... well, they were not the pretty boys. As for the song itself, you cannot say that "Cool It Now" doesn't make you want to dance. Just a little.

Before the videos, I'll add an audio link to Foster Sylvers' (little brother and occasional member of the Sylvers, a minor rival to the Jackson 5) "Misdemeanor." Total 1973 R&B, oft-sampled, fantastic song. Check it out after the jump.( videos under the cut )

Watch American Idol.

Drink a full glass of whatever whenever Kara DioGuardi asks a rhetorical question.  "Do I want to drink a whole martini at once...[drawn out, kinda whiny pause]? No.  But will I...? *GLUGGLUGGLUG*

Sorry for missing Video Friday - I was drinking with co-workers and having a good old time. 

I was thinking of posting a slow jam or two - something Keith Sweat, or High-5, something along those lines.  But while hanging out with uisinger and detlef, the majesty of Ginuwine's video for "Pony" came up.  It was a silly video, complete with the tour bus' friend/ roadie/ supplier? taking the singer and crew to some honky tonk.  Then again, there was a motorized saddle to ride, so that must have been the impetus. 

The lyrics are here, and now for the video:

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Does this make you think of any other R & B videos where you want to yell at your screen, "that's not even THINLY veiled?!!!"

And thanks to Gulshan's comment, Next's Too Close. The video's not that scandalous but the lyrics are about a guy who is... "too excited."

As many of my friends know, I listened to a whole lot of hair metal back in the day. You don't need to continue with this post if you don't want to read about hair metal - acquired taste, after all.

( Three videos from that 88-91 era and some commentary )

A few notes, since I liked the theme and sat through the Rat Pack show. I know most of you have better and smarter things to do than watch American Idol, but it was on as the Mets' relief pitchers disintegrated:

1. Jamie Foxx is mad creepy. Just obnoxious, creepy, and I think he's just saying things to see what they sound like. I respect that in music (like the band Shudder to Think, a little - words have connotations even if they're not the word you would use to describe the feeling in the essay). But in a guy giving advice? Weird.

2. Allison Iraheta's gonna go home, and she's someone I would actually sit and watch on this karaoke show. Not because she sucks, but because she's a little young and she's been near the going-home edge for weeks.

3. That Matt kid, the one who was in music school or whatever? I see why he got his B. Interesting but hard to listen to.

4. That Gokey kid has a career in acting. He smirks like a cocky a-hole on the red carpet.

5. The reason I started this post is Adam Lambert. Uh... he wasn't very good! But since the judges have his ****s in their *****s I guess it's hard for them to say anything negative about his performance. He made that song sound terrible. It wasn't terribly sung, per se, but it seemed more like a PERFORMANCE than a genuine song, and the vocals didn't sound pleasing, to boot.

But this is not a show made for me, so he probably was awesome.

This week...

NEW JACK SWING with Christopher Williams' "I'm Dreamin'" from the New Jack City Soundtrack. Excuse yourself to dance in your seat and whip out your black fuzzy Kangol.




And Tony! Toni! Toné!'s "It Never Rains (In Southern California).

[I've been trying to make the weekly Friday video thing a running feature on this LJ. But this week, I haven't listened to much music - it's the first week I've been able to ride for most of the work week. And I'm not an asshat, I don't ride with headphones. Enjoy the below. And no, I don't have my driver's license. I'm from New York City and we didn't really need it.]

A fictional doraphilia might say: See, the thing is, picodulce, he's just.... kind of old. And weird. He totally listens to really corny music. Evidence? Here are some songs he always tries to make me listen to. When he gets his driver's license and controls the music, he's going to be entirely insufferable. For example:




AND






Bonus Music.

As a bonus, this is one of the worst American Idol performances I have ever heard this side of Kristy Lee Cook's "Eight Days A Week":



And I found Kristy Lee's slasher performance, just so it can get stuck in your heads:

Ask a question, any question - and it will be answered by our dog Otis! Come on, have a go and see what the puppy says about your relationship problems, decisions to make, educational advancement, and dog psychology questions.

Otis has a Master's in Four-Legged Chase from the prestigious College of Park Slope and a Bachelor's in Human Emotion from Lassie University of Great Britain.

Two articles I came across today while skimming stuff for a sports blog post (I try to add some extra links when putting up short notes, but I digress) from the Wall Street Journal and Friedman from the New York Times suggest that bringing in immigrants with the ability to buy houses might just be the ticket to recovery. They come from slightly different angles, but both start from how the Senate voted in February to restrict financial institutions from hiring highly skilled immigrants to come in temporarily on H1-B visas.

Friedman's take in the New York Times is that an open, flexible society - where new people and new ideas are brought in - will enhance our nation's intellectual creativity and increase the knowledge economy. This will, in turn, better deploy smarts and ideas to profitable products and services, build a competitive advantage in the number (and I assume, interaction between) the bright bulbs out there, which will raise incomes and create jobs. In his words:

The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, has an Op-Ed from Richard LeFrak (like Lefrak City?), a real estate developer and A. Gary Shilling, an economic consultant.  They speak specifically to having foreigners with money buy housing stock to take it off the market, protecting housing value by eliminating the huge surplus of useable - but unsaleable - housing.  Those immigrants would then be a part of the jobs recovery by adding knowledge and investing in companies/ new ventures.  Part of their take is below, read the article for more:

As consumers retrench, production is cut, payrolls are slashed, and consumer confidence, incomes and spending are savaged in a self-feeding downward economic spiral. But if the government buys surplus houses and sells them at low market-clearing prices, other house prices will drop, destroying more home equity and driving many more mortgages under water. Bulldozing excess houses would be an inefficient end for perfectly habitable structures.

A better idea is to offer permanent residence status to the many foreigners who are clamoring to get into the U.S. -- if they buy houses of minimal values (not shacks). They wouldn't need to live in those houses, but in order to remove the unit from the total housing market, they couldn't rent them. Their temporary resident status granted upon purchase would become permanent after, perhaps, five years, if they still owned the houses and maintained clean records. The mere announcement of this program might well stop the ongoing collapse in house prices, especially in cities such as Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix and San Francisco, where prices are down 40% -- but where many foreigners like to live.

Each year, 85,000 H-1B visas are granted for foreigners with advanced skills and education, and last year, 163,000 petitions were filed in the first five days after applications were accepted. The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation estimates that as of Sept. 30, 2006, 500,040 residents of the U.S. and 59,915 individuals living abroad were waiting for employment-based visas. Many would buy homes if their immigration conditions were settled.

These people tend to be highly productive. In 2006, foreign nationals residing in the U.S. were listed as inventors on 25.6% of the patent applications filed in the U.S., up from 7.6% in 1998. A Council of Graduate Schools survey found that in the fall of 2007, 241,095 non-U.S. citizens were enrolled in graduate programs. Some 55% were in engineering and the biological and physical sciences, compared with only 16% of U.S. citizens. In 2007, more people on temporary visas received doctorates in physical sciences and engineering than U.S. citizens.

Now, this all bothered me a little at first - I don't know where the capital for these supposed new ventures would be; I don't think every immigrant is going to roll up with the Brinks truck of cash required to get a venture off the ground, let alone with the expertise to plop down and start doing business in the US business culture - but perhaps I am overstating that barrier.

I don't know how US Citizens would react to an influx of immigrants - as new financial overlords? 

How long would this process take to establish? 

How would less-desired immigrants react (like Mexicans who might wish to leave drug violence, for example)? 

Why would foreigners invest in the US if the banking system is seriously under duress, capital is hard to come by, and the US' time as a driver for some innovation is dependent on people from other countries?  What if China suddenly became a more efficient place to create innovation?

What do you think?

So at times when I am riding around Chi, I get annoyed by the lack of accepted community protocols when it comes to biking the streets. People ride and don't signal, pass without letting you know they're coming in hard on your left, run stop lights while barely looking, don't give room for another bike to pass. And then there is riding with cars on the side, which is another can of danger.

Today was a pretty good day, except for the end. I didn't get into an accident or anything. But for much of the way from downtown, I was trailing a fella going at a good pace, navigating the cars and taxis well, signaling when he wanted to turn. Then I was on the diagonal street, and things ran smoothly; I called out when I passed people on the left, and one of them even said "thank you." Nice day. I was riding much of the way home with a fella without a helmet who was trailing me. Nice day.

Then, near the hospital and school, I come to a stop light to early, so I slow down to a near stop. As I am drifting a little left and right to keep my momentum up, and just before the light changes, a bike comes right by me on the left. I say, as I do sometimes, "hey, call it out next time." They guy turns and goes, "what did you say?" Mind you, this is no archetypal thug or tattooed tough or bike messenger punk, this is some everyday tall yet lightly doughy white fellow in plaid and a bike helmet.

I say, "just saying, call out when you're on the left." He dismisses me and moves on.

At the next light, he slows and he's all "what did you say to me? Don't talk to me. Do you fucking know me? Don't fucking tell me what to do!" He's drifting towards me. He's a little bigger, but I am, as always, very willing to punch in the neck and kick at the balls in a confrontation. But it doesn't even have to be that serious.

"Man, I'm just sayin', call it out. Be polite. Be easy, damn." He's cussin some more and is saying "you don't fucking know me." Which is true. I also don't want to get hit by him, either, if he's doing something that I can't see. This is why we have signals. I'm prepared to see where he went, but he shakes his head, crosses to the other side of the street and pulls in at the local school.

From what I remember growing up, I don't even think kids in my old neighborhood (kinda hood) jump to confrontation like that cat, probably going in to teach some afterschool class.

I'm still kind of fucking pissed. I thought about channeling a little of disolvinggirl, but I think she no longer tries to beat people up when she rides. Or maybe I just don't know about it.  I think that dude's probably having a pissy work day, but I don't want to be the brunt of it when someone's doing shitty.  I should carry brass knuckles just in case.  Kidding!

I post for three four reasons:

1- for the new icon, taken from one of tx_cronopio's friends.

2- to remark that I have the itchiest f**kin' bug bite and it's right under my ring finger. Where my ring is at. I just took off my ring and I am pocketing it. Picked the scab off of the bug bite and everything. SO ITCHY.

3- to share this site, which focuses on a different ridiculous rap lyric per day. Seriously funny, with categories like "bad with women," "graphically overboard," "impossible," "plain rude," "so basic," "worst houseguest," and "kinda gay". The writers have barely touched the oeuvre that is DMX.

4- and to share New Order's Regret video.

Man, those are some pants. I was working out to this and some other songs this morning. The workout was terrible - one of the worst I've had, since I could only finish about half my workout. I think perhaps how I was feeling really pent up on Wednesday and lifted more than usual probably led to my muscles not being able to do it again... even though I don't have any kind of pain or aches. I dunno. Just a weak, tired day, I suppose.

But anyway! Enjoy a good ass song that should be played on the radio more often.

Always interested in this - are you cutting anything out for Lent?  I never did that growing up, and these days I am not going to church, so working on resolutions for Lent would be pretty silly.  Comment below.

(also to be cross posted on the sports blog.)

Starting Lineups! The Puppy Bowl starts at 3 pm Eastern. Somehow I think we will be watching it. Ms. Philia, perhaps you should tell people to come over early, especially if they don't care about men hitting men and tight spirals.  Here's Charlie Brown, for your cooing pleasure.

My office stopped for half an hour.  Freaking liberals.  Oh, what am I saying?  I was down in the basement watching with everyone else!  What a moment.

I need so many new icons. One is a c-c-c-cold icon. It's -21... Celcius! It's only -5, you fricking wimps! It's not bad except for the insta-freezing snot. Personally, I am excited that both doraphilia and I have plans. Of course, she's got the car, and I will discover whether one can freeze standing up on an elevated north side platform.

I'm posting because I loved this on the front page of the Tribune:



My wife didn't make me.  She might say I made her.  No, it was a mutual decision.

I do have to say, though, a great many people here do have a choice to move from this heat-forsaken laketown that Père Marquette moronically wintered in Chicago and didn't run screaming, and this Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, who as a half-black man of African/ Hatian + French descent, REALLY should have known better.

EDIT: I should add that yesterday's cold was made much better by a broken water valve up the street.  The Chicago Water Distrrict folks shut off our water for the whole evening while they fixed it.  That was NOT awesome.

Here is what I emailed to my work people about the trip to Buenos Aires and Rio. It's redundant for most of you, but hey, you're not doing anything, right? I even included my signature so you know who I really am and where I work.  So here you are:

---

Since people have asked and I have been remiss in sending photos, here is an email with links to my flickr with all the vacation/ honeymoon photos from Brazil and Buenos Aires.  You can skim and look at the “Best of” picture sets, which will open into a flickr slideshow.  If you want to look at a few of the pictures, remove “/show” from the URL.   You can also read the descriptions and look at the “Best ofs”, or if you’re really sad about the cold and snow, look at all the photos and think about how it was 22 degrees in most of them.  Celsius. 

Our favorite place is at the bottom, Paraty.  The recap is as follows:
 

Rio

Rio (best of) photos in slideshow form (on the top right there is a “show info” option in the menu, it might be useful to see the limited descriptions) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/picodulce/sets/72157611020871228/show/

Dora and I spent much of our first and last weekends in Rio de Janeiro, and a day late in the first week after coming back from a town called Arraial do Cabo.  It was cloudy and rained at least a little each day, but it was still pretty in Arpoador/ Ipanema, where we stayed.  We remained in those neighborhoods along with nearby Copacabana and Leblon the first weekend, and did our serious sightseeing –

Cristo Redentor - Christ the Redeemer, built to have views of the whole city and be seen by the whole city.  Comes with a slow moving tram up to the top of Corcovado mountain (where Cristo has his hands out) and almost kind of lame;

Pão De Açùcar - Sugar Loaf – a mountain that is said to look like a refined loaf of sugar.  Or it may be named for the word for “high hill” used by the indigenous peoples).  Comes with two suspended trams that sway when they stop at the (high) platforms.  But much better views, a much nicer park, and a better experience; and

Centro/ Downtown. 

Really, we did all that on the last Friday, including the metropolitan church and the art museum.  There are other pictures we hope to get from friends we made on the trip of the hilly Santa Teresa neighborhood where we had dinner, and of the wild nightlife in the Lapa neighborhood – it was like Mardi Gras, throngs of people and sound and music from every building, a snaking line of taxis slowly moving up the street –and  that’s a regular Rio (Spring) Saturday.

The waves were pretty big, the surfers were all over.  And since everyone asks about the people, they were attractive, but in a very normal, “living well” sort of way.  Though there was some plastic surgery on some folks.  And many houses were protected by high metal fences and a watchman.  You can snack all day either from the beach stands or the vendors who walk the beach!  We ate less steak than you would think.  There is the famed “Hippie Fair” a few streets from where we stayed and it was really cool – with art, gemstones, tourist crap, beads/ necklaces and the like.

The cab drivers were ridiculous in the way that cab drivers are ridiculous in many places; and we only saw one really disturbing thing (not including the mass of prostitutes our night in Lapa).  The residents (known as Cariocas) were unbelievably nice, even if I understood about 5 words of Portuguese (my wife fared better, being able to pick up a few words, cobble together some Spanish, and gesture wildly).  I said “obrigado” (thank you) a lot. We drank a lot of açaí juice.  The buses were bumpy and everyone drives like the cab drivers.   

More Rio photos (all slideshow view):

More Rio (includes sets below)

Cristo Redentor

Pão De Açùcar

Arraial do Cabo (info)

Best of Arraial do Cabo in slideshow form (use the “show info” option on the top right menu) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/picodulce/sets/72157611010917896/show/

On the suggestion of a friend we met at a wedding in May who is from Brazil, we skipped the more famous (and clubby) Búzios to go to the more secluded and quiet Arraial do Cabo for a night during the first week of our trip, before going back to Rio.  It was a sleepy fishing town… really.  Nothing was going on.  And we couldn’t find the beach at first, but it turns out that the “hiking” and the “beach” were intertwined – we had to hike up and over a hill to get to the beach, which can be reached only by foot or boat. 

There were stray dogs hanging out on the beach, minding their business, sand crabs, and some pristine water.  We drank some terrible wine and talked with a guy who worked for our hotel for a long time.  And worked on our tans.  In our night and day there, it only rained once, when we arrived.  We discovered that açaí juice could come in semi-frozen form.

Buenos Aires

Best of Buenos Aires (I forget the names of the monuments and sights. Slideshow view) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/picodulce/sets/72157611020960098/

 

Our middle weekend was spent in Buenos Aires.  “Good airs”?  That air was awful.  It was like chewing smoke.  Combined with the 95degree temps when we landed, the taxi that was more than we expected, and how conveniently our hotel upgraded us from a air-conditioner free room (we should have checked on that one!) to an air conditioned room for $20US/ night, our first hours were not the best.  And then it poured rain for a couple of hours.  But everything else was fantastic.  I have to say that the Lonely Planet guide was wrong on a lot of things, but so it goes.

BA is apparently like a mix of Paris, New York, and Madrid.  I’ve only been to NY, so I take other people’s word on it.  But it was very European.  Wide streets (including one of the widest in the world, Avenida 9 de Julio) Actually, a lot of people looked like they belonged on NYC’s Upper West Side.  But there were no black people.  We didn’t see a lot of natural beauty (there’s a plastic surgery joke in here), but the city is very walkable, the subway (Subte) was effective though HOT, and the exchange rate was, well, quite favorable.  And there was really good ice cream all over the place.  And bakeries, and alfajores. 

I dug the Palermo neighborhood – a few galleries, lots of eating, lots of drinking, and nightclubs.  Including the one we went into with my newly transplanted friend Sammy (one of the 7% of the Buenos Aires population that is American-born).  I think the club was called “Hummer”, and I think they went from “Come on Eileen” or some other 80’s favorite into what sounded like Hava Nagila.  Strange.

We went to Eva Peron’s grave in Recoleta (more photos from the cemetery if you want) and the San Telmo fair, which I thought was kind of junky and filled with tourists, lots of Americans.  A lot of hostels in the neighborhood there.

More Buenos Aires

 

Paraty

Best of Paraty (slideshow) - http://www.flickr.com/photos/picodulce/sets/72157611021045832/show/

We love Paraty (more here).  Point blank.  Favorite place on this trip.  It’s an old colonial town and fort from when gold was mined and shipped back to Portugal.  It’s now a resort/ getaway town for Cariocas and Paulistanos (São Paulo residents).  Much of the area with activity is closed off to traffic; and even in the areas that are not, there are cyclists and dogs and low traffic.  They have their own tourist police as well, which I thought was strange, but I assume that folks from Rio and São Paulo want to leave their gated apartment buildings behind when they get away.

The place where we stayed was great.  Not too high on frills, but really pretty, old wood and big rooms.  And friendly fellow guests.  And a monkey or three who came by to see if he/ she could get some of our breakfast… the resident dog didn’t like the monkeys very much.  Paraty is also famous for many different types of Cachaça, a couple of which laid me out like a college freshman.  We found a bar across the street from where we stayed and spent a lot of time there.

We also ate very well, decided that ice cream should be only paid for by weight, took a boat tour and went snorkeling near a few of the 300 islands.  We tried taking a canoe trip, but the mix of high winds and us being unable to manage a tandem boat sent us back to shore.  We made the friends that we went out with in Rio here, an American and a Norweigan on a vacation.  Sorry that the bar photos are blurry… but that matches how I felt.  I don’t think I can drink cachaça anymore.  The trip back to Rio from Paraty involved rolling hills and roads twisting around mountains and in valleys and I swear, I will never take a ride like that again after drinking.  Queasy.

More Paraty

I know that was a lot.  Thanks for reading, hope you enjoy the pictures!

Best,

[R. Pico Dulce]
[Amorphous Title]
[Nerdy Numbers Dept., Warm and Snuggly Nerdy National Organization]
[email address, x-####]


(No, I really work for a company called "Warm and Snuggly Nerdy National Organization".  We're the WSNNO for short.)